That's 44 feet of pull up goodness. Now we can run 24 athletes on the bars at the same time.

We had our third wave of equipment arrive from Rogue Fitness. For other people, this is probably insignificant. But for myself, our staff, and our athletes who started with us this time last year when all we had were just cinder blocks and homemade wall balls, it’s another milestone into the development of our company and community.

When we started this company, we knew we had to have three things to be successful. The first was that we had to provide world class coaching. Getting certified is just a pre-req. To be world class, we continuously strive to implement our knowledge and training methods to set our athletes up for the best opportunity for success. The second was that we had to build a strong and positive community. Well, from the bonds that we see between our athletes and all your willingness to help and support one another, I think we have that down. The third was that we had to construct an effective facility. We don’t need fancy things, but we need tools to help us make the training experience as effective and as efficient as possible.

We would like to thank everyone for your continued support and efforts, and we would like to especially thank all of our athletes who directly helped us with equipment through their donations. Check out the first install here.

21 Dec 2010

We recently acquired some new gear for everyone at the gym. The gear includes plyo boxes, more bumper plates, more Olympic bars, more pull up bands, extension of the pull up system, another squat rack, and rubber flooring. The new equipment has made me realize that I need to take a dose of my own medicine. I don’t know if it’s the CrossFit nature or just me, but I’m always itching to make it to the next progression. Whether it’s in physical development or development of the business, I’m always looking ahead to what’s next and how to get there as fast as possible. I’ve been wanting to have a grand opening for the gym, but with how busy we’ve been ever since opening and getting things settled, it’s proven to be difficult at best. This has actually been stressing me out. We have a long to do list at the gym and the list seems to get harder and harder to keep up with as we continue to grow. This has made me realize that I need to take a step back and evaluate the situation, because my stress contributes nothing to progression.

Allowing myself to feel stressed isn’t going to help the situation. I started having negative thoughts about how long it was taking to get the gym ready and about how much more other gyms are developed compared to ours. Comparing yourself to others should be used solely as a benchmark tool, not a judgment tool. This is true for our performance in the gym and in our lives. If we were to “judge” ourselves against what other people can do, what they can’t do, what they have, and what they don’t have, that’s going to lead us down the wrong path, and a very unhappy path at that. Instead, we need to keep our comparisons in relative check.

I try to show our athletes that people who are the real deal don’t need external factors to push themselves, they already have that internal competition built up within themselves, where it matters most. Comparison or competition with others only affirms the effort and commitment they have already put in. Look back at where you’ve come from, and see how much you’ve progressed. Then ask yourself, could you have done anything differently to have improved. If so, then look ahead and make those improvements for the future, but regret nothing, because regrets don’t help. If you feel you’re on the right track, then have the peace of mind to keep at it and make small improvements along the way. The largest progressions happen early on and it’s the real professionals that keep on pushing for every small progression thereafter. If you have ever seen the cinderblocks in the gym, I keep them there to remind myself that that’s all the equipment we had when we started training at the park. So, it might not be all about progression after all, it might just be about having patience and living (and enjoying) one progression at a time.

25 Jan 2010

Medicine balls, or weighted balls, have been in use by trainers and athletes in boxing and various other sports to add dynamic resistance to training. They were called medicine balls because of the “health” benefits that could be reaped from using them in training. Funny huh?

Dynamax balls cost around $75-80 for one, so with every dollar counting these days, I wanted to make an inexpensive alternative for the guys to use until we get some “Gucci” gear. Fancy equipment is nice, but quality in movement is what it’s all about.

To make one for under $15, you’ll need an old basketball. Go to any gym and ask for a lost and found one.

1) Next, drill a hole through the surface.
2) Then, fill-er up with sand. I used 5 quarts. Cut a hole in one of the corners of the bag of sand. It’ll make pouring it into the hole a lot easier.
3) Use a tire patch kit to seal up the hole.
4) Now, go out and throw the bad little sucker against the first sturdy wall you see! I need to weigh it, but it’s lighter than my 35lb kettlebell and feels to be right around 20-25lbs.

24 Nov 2009

This series will be targeted for parents who do not have the option of heading to a gym. You can pretty much scale down any CrossFit workout with just a pull up bar and set of dumbbells or resistance bands. But, we’ll make it even simpler than that, we’ll start off with bodyweight exercises only.

Obviously you won’t be able to get the full potential of benefits, but any physical activity is better than none!

You can YouTube any exercise on here for a demo. Credit to a CF affiliate from the CF message board (www.board.crossfit.com) for the base program.